Perils of the Season
by MariaShadow
Summary: The traditional Christmas fic. Completely unserious
1. Chapter 1

Perils of the Season

The Ark was a dangerous place around Christmas time, and not just because of the mistletoe.

With the sudden influx of packages and decorative trappings being strung up along almost any suitable surface Red Alert was almost beside himself with paranoia, half convinced that a Decepticon spy was hidden in every cluster of festive bunting. For the most part his fears were quite groundless except for Laserbeak having once been flushed out of a bundle of pine branches that were going to be put up in the Common Room.

But never the less there were always a few worried that somehow the Security Director would somehow put together a rational enough argument to have the traditional Christmas party banned for security reasons. Thankfully, he was always too flustered to put his thoughts into working order, though some suspected a few exotic additives to his rations had a hand in that.

Ratchet and the science team were another reason for the increased December health hazards.

As any dedicated hooligan knows, a holiday of any significance means a party. And a party means booze. Therefore to ensure a steady supply of drinkables, a number of closet brewers would start cooking up concoctions of intoxicating liquids as soon as November was over. And because brewing would often required a number of very specific tools, all sorts of equipment started vanishing out of the science lab and the store rooms. Nobody was stupid enough to touch the repair equipment, but the CMO's set of tempered glassware was fair game.

To counteract the 'borrowing', Ratchet and Wheeljack spearheaded an Ark-wide equipmentrecovery program, armed with the Dinobots as incentive for quick return of items. The rest of the science team implemented an ingenious security system that relied heavily on permanent dye packs and ink bombs to protect what remained.

But there was an upside to the party aspect for the command team. It was well known that Prowl was in charge of writing the duty roster, and equally well known that he had the habit of giving the worst duties to whomever had given him the worst headache over the past week. Thus to avoid being saddled with monitor duty or worse right when the party was in full swing, behavior was surprisingly good.

The only real cramp in the season was that Megatron seemed to favour it for demoralizing attacks against the local populace. So to ensure that the entire fighting force was not completely bottled when a call-out was sounded, the traditional party was held in shifts and there was a limit to the amount and potency of the intoxicants allowed. Nevertheless, a good time was generally had by all.

Except of course, for those who found themselves in the company of some mistletoe.


	2. Chapter 2

Deck the Halls and Run for Cover

"Equipment Blitz! Run for it!"

The Minibot operators of the clandestine brewery scrambled into action, breaking up the various components of their jury-rigged operation and escaping with them down the vent shafts to a pre-determined secondary location. By the time Ratchet, Swoop and Sludge broke through the door of the old store room, they were long gone.

"Fraggit!" Ratchet kicked an empty barrel and activated his radio. "Ratchet to Wheeljack. We missed 'em." He snarled.  
"_Ditto. That's the third one today. They're getting too good at this."_ The inventor sighed. _"Maybe we should get Jazz to help track them down?"  
_The CMO grunted "For all we know he's one of 'em." He replied. "How about you get around to building those mini-tracers? That'd make things easier."  
"_I would, but…"  
_"Your equipment's gone?"  
"_Yeah."  
_"Peachy. Okay, let's try the next one. Ratchet out."

0o0o0

Meanwhile, the 2IC was patiently listening as Red Alert expounded at length the perils of allowing a Christmas party in the Common Room and the major security risk that it posed.

At least, he was attempting to, when in actual fact he was so frazzled that he really wasn't making much sense at all. But Prowl was still listening anyway, out of a sense of courtesy if nothing less.

"…so you see Prowl, it is clearly too great a danger to allow a party." Red Alert finished, folding his arms and awaiting his expected reply.

Prowl contained a small sigh of irritation. He'd been through this little spiel so many times he could probably recite both Red Alert's argument and his reply backwards while in recharge.

"Red Alert, I appreciate your concern and attention to your duty, but despite any orders handed down by the command element the vast majority of the warriors will have a party whether we agree to it or not. At least this way the party will be held in a controlled environment." Prowl explained.  
"But you don't understand!" Red Alert protested, launching into his lecture again.

Prowl sighed, his doorwings twitching back in annoyance. _"Here we go again."_

0o0o0

"Ow! Hey, watch the face will ya?"  
"If you'll stop struggling I'll stop hitting you!"

Trailbreaker tried very hard not to laugh as the twins bickered while attempting to untangle themselves without breaking the thin wires. Somehow they had gotten snarled up in the fairy lights that they were supposed to be stringing up along the walls of the Common Room. Twostroke watched the commotion from the safety of her perch halfway up the Autobot sized artificial Christmas tree. Sideswipe had stuck her there when she was playing with the lights, and she seemed to like it so far.

"Here, lemme give you a hand." Trailbreaker volunteered. The twins, who had somehow managed to get themselves tied back to back by this stage, gratefully accepted the assistance. Several minutes of careful untangling later, and the warriors were free.

0o0o0

In the labs, Perceptor was lying on the floor and carefully tightening a fine wire strung between the back of an equipment locker and the bottom of the partially opened locker door. Once he was finished, should anyone open the door without disengaging the wire first, they would receive a rather colourful surprise in the form of an exploding dye pack.

It did make things a bit cumbersome around the lab, having to disarm the various traps and triggers before removing any equipment for use, but at least there was some assurance that the equipment would actually be there come morning.

Satisfied with his work, the scientist stood, closed the door and brushed himself off, before returning to one of the innumerable projects that were scattered around the benches. Wheeljack clumped in the main doors, a box of glass beakers and a handful of pipettes in his arms. "And the raiders have returned triumphant!" The Lancia announced, placing his spoils on the nearest clear area of bench. "Me and Slag managed to get the drop on Powerglide and Brawn."  
"Some good news at last." Perceptor smiled. "We had best store these away before someone else wishes to make use of them." He said, sorting through the glassware.  
"Pipettes go in here, right?" Wheeljack asked, carrying the items to one of the lockers. The locker that Perceptor had just been working on

"Yes, but that locker…"

_BANG_

"Never mind."


	3. Chapter 3

'Tis theSeason to Watch the Ceiling

"Hold up guys, I think I saw something." Hound warned. Inferno and Skids waited as the jeep walked up to a support beam running across the hallway, reached up and removed a sprig of mistletoe, taking a quick look at it before flipping it into subspace.  
"Any more of it?" Inferno called.  
Hound poked around a bit more. "Nope, all clear."

Mistletoe, that almost unnoticeable parasite of a plant, was every Autobot's worst fear come Christmas time. And even though dedicated teams of Autobots combed the hallways for it, more and more of the stuff would turn up just minutes later. Red Alert even joined in on the hunt for the stuff via his network of security cameras, but sadly his efforts were usually hampered by his unnatural extra frazzled-ness around this time of year.

Despite the protests from all and sundry, the command unit thought it better to not declare mistletoe a forbidden item. Knowing the determination of the Ark's population of hooligans, they'd dig up some sort of Earth custom that was even worse. So it was more a case of better the devil you know rather than the custom you did not.

But to appease the rank and file it was decreed that all mistletoe could be anonymously left in a box in the Rec room with no fear of reprisal up to dusk on December 26, after which it was taken outside and semi-ceremoniously burned by Ironhide. Anyone caught with it after the amnesty period would be turned over to Ratchet.

Though despite all the complaints about the greenery, strangely enough not many people seemed to complain when it was Carly who got caught under the mistletoe with them.

0o0o0

Jazz surveyed the Common room with a careful optic. "Lesse now." He picked up a datapad and scrolled through the to do list he'd written out. "Lights, check. Tree, check. Decorations, check. Music, check. Looks like we'll be havin' a cracker of a Christmas party t'morrow." He glanced down at the cat by his feet. "Wadda ya think, Two?"

The feline yawned and started to wash her face.

A grin lit up Jazz's face and he snapped his fingers. "That's it! And t' think I almost forgot about th' booze. Thanks Two. Wouldn't be much of a party without it, eh?" Twostroke mewed her agreement then went back to her grooming.

0o0o0

Meanwhile, Ratchet was making his own preparations for the upcoming party. His glassware had finally been returned, clean thankfully, so for the last few hours the CMO had been ensconced in the small laboratory, brewing up various chemical concoctions to soothe the after-effects of what was bound to be a spectacular party, guaranteed to be Decepticon-free.

Wheeljack had taken the Dinobots out on a little 'exercise' to make sure the 'cons would be kept distracted over Christmas Day and hopefully Boxing Day too if they were lucky.

Of course the trip was totally unauthorised, but the higher ups had learned long ago to never get between the Dinobots and an outside activity. But it did help that Jazz had been on watch when they left and that by now Red Alert would possibly be seeing green sheep and blue kangaroos if he were anywhere near the state of lucid consciousness.

Ratchet had it on good authority (a.k.a the report of one surgeon in training) that the Security Director had been found passed out in his monitor room from energon overdose. The CMO smirked to himself as he mentally reviewed the report he had prepared for Prowl. How the event could have occurred was beyond the good doctor's knowledge, but he did suspect it had something to do with a number of missing chemicals and had put in a footnote suggesting that it might be a good idea to get the store room locks changed.

Though he would have rather shot himself in the foot than admit it, the twins did have some good ideas occasionally.


End file.
